00:00:00 Speaker 1: Hey guys, before we get started here, your boy messed something up with the recording. I mean, for those of you who don't know, Joe and I live on two separate parts of the country, so we do a lot of our recording via zoom and I managed to mess that up this week, so the audio quality isn't gonna be quite what you're used to. Um, this is my fault. I'm sorry. Please don't stop listening to the podcast forever and ever. All right, let's get to it. What do you do when you take a buddy to a spot and then show up in that spot and he is there with someone else that you don't know? What do you do? Then in the shot glass there's you know, it's filled with epoxy and at the bottom of that is a tied te kilo worm. What is the weirdest thing that you've ever called? Foul ball? Hit by Muky Wilson. The Quintussentio Honey Drift to Curler mouse By is my current supercent. Good morning to Jennered anglers, and welcome to Bent, the fishing podcast that has spent way more money on laura and flymaking materials than the number of lawyers and flies. It is actually produced, and I made it, samac and I feel your pain, dude, because uh, I mean that's that's what happens, you know. Yeah. Well I don't know about you, man, but like here's the trap that I fell into when I first started tying flies I made up. It looked as if I was trying to make potions. With the shopping lists that I put together. It was like, oh yeah, I of peacock, uh mane of moose, and inevitably, I mean, like the thing is is like you go and you get a book that's like kind of like the first thing, and it has all the patterns in it. There was a series of mim I forget what they were called, but they were like kind of coil bound books, man, and each one of them had like, you know, a hundred two hundred patterns in it, and you would go through these yeah, and you would go through these things and you'd be like, oh, well, if it's in here, I obviously needed. So you'd end up with like like jungle cock eyes and ship you know, just like it you don't need, no, yeah, no, no, well yeah dude, so I bought I mean, yeah, you're right, like you can get carried away with lists and books. I also I'll just find like you you go to buy like, you know, buck tail, but then you see cool popper heads, so you're like, oh, those are cool, and then you're like, oh, that would look great with this, and then you just buy all this material for flies you didn't even intend to make. In fact, somebody even wanted. Like somebody gave me a tube fly adapter for my advice years ago, and it's sat here, and then one day I saw it and I'm like, I'm about this, And I went out and bought all the ship to make tube flies, thinking I'd use them for trout, and I made three. I didn't. I didn't really like them or catch anything with him. But the thirty dollars worth material I just for the tube flies is still sitting here, like I've done all the things. Have you ever tried to build yourself a rod? When I was in ninth grade, I bought one of those like Cabela's rod making kids, And I remember I remember spending Halloween in high school and um spent all night trying to trying to build a rod that didn't It ended up working. Okay, what actually ended up happening to It was I didn't see the blank far enough in the in the court grip there, and I hooked a really big fish. I was. It was actually you know, as I so often call out on y, This was on lake wall and pop pack um. I still remember. I was trying to catch like some panfish, and I was on this dock, and this dock was on a drop, and I was fishing this little white streamer and all of a sudden, I'm kind of like watching the streamer come back towards me through the water and it gets about over this rop where it drops from like a shoal to I don't know, like thirty ft or something, and I just see the shape come up and it was a striper, and yeah, the striper waxed this thing. I set the hook and immediately like the ride just like disintegrate to my hand, and it broke in the grip. So now I was out a hundred dollars um, and being in ninth grade, the might as well have been ten thousand dollars, because like I, I I sure wasn't gonna buy another court grip for this thing, not to mention like it would involve like scraping the epoxy off the end of the blank. So what I did was I bored a hole through a bunch of wine corks that my mother had a you know, I didn't say yeah, yeah, yeah, And I cut the top end of it off with wire cutters about two and a half feet, threaded it through the hole in the corks. And that show is a story of my first ice fishing rock. Oh there you go, repurposed it. That's good. See I didn't even do that. See, I got sucked into it um one year and because I literally I stumbled across discount blanks. There were some blanks in a flea market and they were super cheap, and I also found out later they were also jumped. You have known better, Joe. Yeah, But here's the thing. I never gave rod building a thought until that was in front of me. But like ten bucks for five blanks turned into under it in rod building material. I built one and it sucked. And here's why. So also because quick man, you know what the biggest problem with rod building is what it's so boring. It's not the most fun unless you're really good at well, even if you're really good at diamond wraps and stuff, that's tedious work. I'll tell you what. I'll tell you what if your favorite part about tying flies is like building a good threadhead, then rod building rod building is for you. Yeah. So here's what I did. This was way back in the day, right, and I had just gotten back from a trip to Quebec, h and I shot a buck. So I thought it would be rad to work a piece of the handler to the grip. But it's just really hurt my hand, Like it was just really stupid. Like I don't know why you would do that. Well, you know what, man, you see all these like, um my, I do have a friend, uh Joey McAvoy who if you're in Pennsylvania. Yeah, he has a He has a guide service called Captain Joe's Guide Service. I might have to like redo that and plug it better, but it's Captain Joe's Guide Service. I think he'd Lake Harmony is like one spot that he guides on, which is fun. Man. He does like a lot of cool trips to post him on Instagram, and um he builds rods too, but he builds a lot of the handles out of like laithe turned wood. And I was always interested in how that would be because like, on one hand, you feel like could be uncomfortable, but on the other hand, if it's like turned the right wings extremely like ergonomic, it's like video game controllers don't really hurt your hands and they're not made out of super like soft cork. Yeah. I have a couple of customers that have really pretty would turn handles, and they're they're okay, I mean to me, like the ones I have are like really heavily varnished in a pox seed, So it's great un till there's fish slime on them. They're slipperies. He well, I'm sure that I'm sure that Captain Joe's rods are not like that, and I'm sure they're not. I think sure they're not. And also it is Captain Joe's fishing. Just just if you're if you're wondering, I gotta do my boy favor, man, I gotta you gotta set them up anyway, While I know that we have some very talented rod builders that listen to this show, like my buddy Captain Joe. For those of you that don't build your own rods or botch them like another Captain Joe, that being Joe sir Mellie and Hayden, you botched your too, I did about to be fair, I was, uh, you need to get friendly with our sponsors fishing. You do you do if if you suck at building your own lords or pouring your own soft flask, that you should link up with them as well. Just throw that out there, but yes, you should be familiar with them. I mentioned last week that I had a few of thirteens pan fish trout prototype rods um just a few days ago. Man, they sent me the production models along with some some mini kalen Sea reels. Let me tell you what like they've done with the omen pan fish trout rods. What bass companies do in that the range of models within the series is pretty impressive. I really if they have a five ft six inch ultra light that I love for spinners, especially on smaller streams because the short rods really accurate, and then a seven footer it's just the bomb for for small hair jigs are like running afloat and jig because the lank and softness lets you set the hook from like a mile away. Really cool stuff. Killer rods that is like one of the things that very much impresses me about thirteen Fishing. It's like the breadth of models that they put out, you know what I mean, Like if you're trying to get into like some very specialized fishing and you're really trying to like fine tune your setup, I would say like a deep dive into the thirteen Fishing catalog is uh, definitely worth your time in consideration. And I'm excited to use uh, you know, some of their open water rods, but I haven't gotten I've gotten to those yet because it's uh, I mean, as we're recording this up where I'm meant to be fishing this week, it's like negative twenty two. Um. But but I've been biting my indoor time to tie some flies between these bouts of ice fishing. And I've always been curious about how a fly makes a leap to like commerci like you know how like sometimes you're tieing something and you're like, I can sell this like this this is a good this is a cool pattern. I know. Um, now you, Joe, you have one of the premier mouse patterns is credited to uh, to our very own Joe sor Mellie Man. Yeah, the Mr. Splinter has made the leap to commercial. I have one. It's my one. It's the only one I'll ever had. Do you want to know what the secret is to getting it there? I just knew a guy. That's the secret. I just I just knew a guy who would say yes, Um no, I'm I'm I'm kidding. I mean, I didn't know a guy. But that's really not all kidding aside there there is more to it than that, um, some of which will explore today in our Smooth Move segment. Now, normally this is where we let guides and captains tell us about wacky ship their clients have done. But we're putting a little different spin on it at the vice. But I'm bumped this week with my old friend Brian Schmidt. Why so this is a little bit different. Um, you know, smooth Moves, it's often a captain or a guy, but we like to incorporate all people in the fishing industry where applicable. So joining us today is my old buddy Brian Schmidt, now currently of Brian Schmidt Bates. Right, you're you're still you're still making the baits. I see them on Instagram. Yeah yeah, yeah, so I I know you make a ton of bass jigs that looks really really cool. But it started out with wooden rats. I still have your rats. You're still making the rats, the big swimmer rats. You know, I haven't made one in a while. I don't have I don't have my witch shops set up right now. It's all kind of between my garage and in storage. So yeah, unfortunately I can't. I can't get to those at the moment. But I miss making those. Man, those were a lot of fun. You know, I've been seeing a lot as I get more into like the fishing realm of things is a fishing podcast hosts want to do. Um, I keep running into these, like these giant wooden rat luers. I kind of assumed that they were just for uh almost just for show man. Are those like legit to people? Like? Are people whacking ship on them? Absolutely? Yeah, I always I always thought it was kind of like a double edged sword maybe like Brian, If you'll agree on one hand, yes, they are just kind of cool trendy to look at, Like, there is that part of it, but like dudes in the know, man, like you could do some gnarly stuff with big rat top water swimmers. Are you hitting like large mouths with them. Is that most most that's that's mostly what they're for. Um. But yeah, man, I was wondered maybe if you weren't making as many rats because they were on the down swinging trendiness. However, you just said the wood shops not set up. However, we did not bring you here to to talk about baits, although we could all day and I highly recommend everybody listening check out Brian Schmidt baits, especially if you're a best dude. But we got to talk about your former life before full time bait maker. Remind me how many years you were the guy at Unqua Fly that vetted every single submission that came through from the tying hopefuls around the world looking to get their patterned in the catalog and commercialized. Yeah, that was That was almost ten years. Almost ten years of my life I spent looking at people's quote unquote work. So well, let me ask you something, man, because I've always been like kind of interested in this. When I was a kid, I was interested in fly tying, and I'm still interested in fly tying. But like I would make these things, I'd be like, oh, like I had a fly fishing mentor I've mentioned before this bus driver Tony, and I would show him this fly that I made, and he'd be like, well, that's just a I don't know, like a pheasant tails soft tackle variation. That's just a you know, this variation, that variation. What what would you say, Like, at what point do you go, oh, that's like a different fly. Yeah? That was the That was that absolutely best part of my job as far as looking at flies, was you know, trying to find those those particular bugs. You know, Um, you gotta understand kind of like what what I was doing on a day to day basis as far as Yeah, I was getting in looking at a lot of flies, but we were looking for something in particular, looking for something specific, not necessarily a batis a merger, not that specific, but we were looking for innovation. We were looking for something that did not scream pheasant tail because it looked just like a pheasant tail. Because you're not going to pay someone a royalty for another pheasant tail. And so there was that aspect of it that really it made the job a whole lot harder because you really had the you had to dig into why they were sending you what they were sending you. So, uh, yes, the big the biggest fly manufacturer, they're going to get whatever is you're going to get the guy who doesn't understand why uncle exists and he wants to show off that he took a fly class last week and look at this wooly bugger I made. Doesn't understand that we're not going to pay you anything for that because you were one of how many people in that particular class? How many classes went on that Tuesday? Now, dude, right? So so what like what did catch your eye? What caught my eye was innovative use of materials, innovative choice of materials, and ultimately what really what really got me excited was simplicity and a reason for the bug in front of me. So when I would open up, okay, I would have a pile of boxes and envelopes on my desk in the morning, all submissions, and I you could tell right off of the bat which ones you wanted to open first because of the care they took in packaging it. Yeah, you know that alone speaks volumes of what you're about to see. In most cases, not always right right? I mean one in particular, you can wrap up a turd, real pretty man, I'll tell you. I'll give you a great example of a wtf did you bother to send me this thing? Why? I don't even understand why. You know, well, wait a minute, hold on one second before you do that, because that's kind of that's kind of why we're having Brian on because I thought, man, it would be fun all those years. And I should also point out that you personally, you know, came up with some incredible bugs during your tenure there. I still throw the Schmidder schmitter bait and the schmitter bug, which is the only fly I'm aware of that was modeled after the jitterbug. So um, you know you you've done this for a very long time. So that's what we thought would be fun. Like, there have to be some standouts before we get into there, because I I know Joeys just gritting his teeth at how I'm derailing this conversation, or maybe you want to get to the funny. I want to hear about the w TS question, dude, I'm just like voraciously curious man. Go man that I'm not Dude. I've known Brian for a long time and I'm always fascinated by this like that job and there because there's so many people out there that that want that so badly. So to have the guy that looked at all those submissions ask away. Okay, um, you know, I think an interesting way to contextualize you, Brian, for our listeners. Is there a specific fly that many many folks know that you bought to market via like a submission? Oh god, yeah, the game Changer. Yeah, we had the game Changer first. All right, yeah, um, you know as far as what what people submitted and you know, making getting excited and making that happen, that's a that's a big one. Um. I mean most of Charlie Craven's Yeah, I mean everything in the past. You know, while I was there for ten years, a lot of that stuff was. I mean, the guy's brilliant. You can you can drop an idea on his on his plate and in a week you've got exactly what you hoped for. So to give you an example, okay, So the Juju series, Okay, those all came out, you know while I was at Umpqua, and it was like, hey, you know RS two sell like unbelievably well, Um, your Juju sell It's like unbelievably well, do you smell what I'm stepping in here, buddy, and he's like, oh, the juju r as to emerge her. I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I go for that. Yeah, you know yeah that so oh on my side, I got to see trends of sales too, and things that would sell. And if Charlie Craven's name was attached to it was gonna sell. And if it was a really highly sought after pattern period, it was gonna sell. So you blend those things together and holy you know, the guy can come up with stuff, you know. Yeah. Um, so a lot of those patterns came out. You know that people, I mean, everybody knows those patterns. Um, does that answer your question? Is that what you totally? Totally It's exactly what I was interested in, man, that is exactly what I was interested So I will now cease to derail the conversation and I will pass it over to Joe. Joe, we can talk about the greats all day. I mean, yeah, Charlie Craven, awesome, Blaine Chocolate with the game changer. But like, having talked to you in the past, like you you were saying like you would get these crumpled envelopes and It's like, why would you send a fly that you want us to consider so poorly? So so hit us, man, give us some examples of the ones that have stuck with you after a decade of like, I can't believe somebody just sent me this. Well, one in particular was I remember when hairline came out with fluoresce and be chein and you know, so this goes back aways and within like a month, Man, I had this envelope that it was smushed to begin with. It was just like a letter envelope, and inside it we're some like bait holder hooks, micro bait holder hooks and white thread that they just lashed this colored be chain too, and inch worms those were the green ones, the San Juan worms was were the hot pink ones, and they were all labeled differently. Right, they just made worms out of a piece of bee chain and white thread on a bait hold. Nailed it, nailed it genius, right. I was surprised you didn't get Like, I'm surprised you didn't just get like two of those little be chains on that bait holder hook with a white thread and somebody be like, this is a milted egg. Yeah, you know that well that, you know, to give the guy credit. Pretty I think it was a guy regardless, UM, give give that person credit. The inch worm was exactly one inch. He did cut that, you know. Yeah, so that was one and it's just you open it up and you you look at it and you're like, well, I responded to everybody. You know, I had to, you know, I wanted to let him know that it got there and in what condition and if that's not the condition that they meant it to be in, then you know, please try again. UM and or hey we're interested in We're not um and those some of those just leave your scratch in your head, like do we pretend to got lost in the mail? Like? You know, I don't want to. It's gonna be an insult with no matter what I say it, I don't mean it to be. But yeah, you know. The funny thing about that one, though, is I mean, I'm sure, I hate to say it, but they'd probably catch fish. And if you needed to get like a San Juan down in a run real quick, I'm sure it would work. But I think the idea of that becoming a commercial pattern, like that's where that misses. That's what I need to know, would never like you're not making that? Oh? I mean, can I guarantee it's like one of the best croppy bluegill things you could tie on, you know what I mean, like just got under a bobber and wait, you know, and it's like a great tip, but a terrible flock. Absolutely, you know. And it's a great it's a great thought press process, but but by no means royalty worthy, you know. And if we're gonna tie up fingers, you know, this is another thing I had to think about. Two. If we're gonna tie up fingers, and then I mean when I'm saying fingers factory time tying. Yeah, yeah, if we're gonna tie up fingers, do we want them time red size eighteen copper John's or or these right righte all month long? Man? Yeah? You know, so the size yeah, those like you know, what's what's good? Yeah, not gonna We're not gonna do that. What was the smallest size atoms you guys sold? Oh gosh, I bet you it was a twenty I think it was a twenty six while I was there, jeez, I think and I know we did. We did special patterns for for shops that were smaller um but wow, but you know those were Yeah, those were Silver Creek Outfitters and this is that they were going to go through them and they kind of needed something like that, but it wasn't necessary for everywhere. You know. Yeah, yeah, got the eight dollar tarpin flies. Man size Adams should be thirty bucks, no kidding, no kidding, And yeah you're not. I've I've I have literally watched girls just crying their eyes out trying to parachute is I'm not even joking, And you just stand there feeling absolutely side of fly fishing. Nobody thinks about you just go into the nice shop and pick them out with the little tweezers and put them in a cup. It's like a woman cried making that absolutely bowled her eyes out, contemplated life as she knew it. Man, you know absolutely for that stupid twenty six that you're gonna stick in the tree Garante. So what else you got? Man? Sometimes you get these really really well packaged boxes and you open it up and you're like, oh this there's something, this could be awesome, and and yet you keep digging at it and you open up this diorama and literal like seventh grade school diorama, and there's shot classes glued to this little picnic table, and in the shot glass there's clear you know, it's filled with a POxy and at the bottom of that is a tied tequilo worm and there's mono tied to a Yeah that's awesome, man, I's sweet. So absolutely, you know, this is the kind of thing that you're like, Oh, I'm gonna parade this around the building and show everybody. Whatever of these flies ended up as like desk toys. Everyone that we speak of today we'll have in one way, shape or form, Yeah, for a for a short period of time, until it was you know, returned to them. Um. But yeah, the diorama, there was a if I'm not if I'm not mistaken, there was actually a an umbrella, you know, like a cocktail umbrella that was spundy and then glued to make it look like it was really poorly done, but it was made to look like an umbrella. Okay, So this whole diorama you get and you're like, again scratching your head, like what am I exactly looking at? Because is the killer worm? The fly? Is the umbrella? The fly? Is this just a you know, right, you know, I don't. Yeah, so that was another one that I was just left scratching. Man, I didn't know. I didn't know what the of it. I didn't know. I didn't really know what to do with it. Um. I couldn't even get to the to the tequila fly because it was, you know, under a POxy into the shot gun. Yeah. Yeah, it did have mondo tied to it so that you knew that it was to look at it, you know, it did have but you had a little picnic table that was made out of toothpicks, and uh at the whole nine yards man, it was. It was a little beach scene. It was. It was phenomenal. But but yeah, what uh, I think you've given some great advice here for anybody ag ainy of the hopefuls out there that think they might have that pattern on what not to do. But um, dude, let's let's let's leave it here, like above all else, Like the the biggest thing to consider if you're a fly tire and you're like, I think this has chops, what's the number one thing like thing to check off before you even go any further with it. You really have to have a reason for why you did it, man. I mean you have to know that there isn't that it isn't duplicating something. And if it seems as if it's duplicating something, there needs to be an evolution of why the existing didn't work and you needed to alter it. So that was that's what I looked for. That was the innovation. Like I said before, that was what I was looking for, you know. And to be very honest with you, the Juju is probably, in my mind, one of and this may sound silly because of how simple it is, it's probably one of the most innovative trout patterns out there because it took something absolutely not trout midge pattern material and made exactly what it should be. Sure sure. So in other words, this fly catches a lot of fish for me and my boys. Is not necessarily like a great jumping off points. It's not. It's not not not unless your boys happened to own like a really veil Valley Anglers or something, you know, something like that. And that's the other thing to think about too. You know, if you walk into these shops, whether it's a flas shop or a retail bass shop, every peg is taken, every fly box then is filled filled you you need to you need to relocate something to have yours in that real estate, right you know, so if you look at a board of winning patterns and you're like, oh, mine isn't gonna fit in here? No, no, yeah, yeah, yeah, there's the business side of it. Well this was fun, man, it was good catching up. Hey, do you have any more questions before we sign off here? I feel like you like you're thinking. I could see you thinking, mm hmmm, um uh, I can think I have some follow up questions, Joe. You and I have been kicking around, ah, you know, in an idea for a segment called Makers, So maybe we'll have to revisit sometimes down the line. What do you think about that? Brian would definitely fit if we if we end up kicking off a maker's segment of the show, for sure. Anyway, everybody needs to look up Brian Schmidt Bates, that's all one word, correct, Brian on the instagrams and uh yeah, and follow him because he makes some some some badass stuff. And one thing I can say about you is you are absolutely not making anything to catch Fisherman. Everything has a reason, just like you've talked about with the flies and um, it is all very good stuff. So yeah, man, if we kick off some maker segment down the road, we will have you back. But in the meantime, dude, thank you, thank you for the the funny fly fail stories. Yeah yeah, guys, it was fun. Thank you for having me. So we hinted at that segment about people who make stuff in fishing, and props to you, Hayden. That was that was Hayden's idea was Yeah, no, it was your credit yourself. Damnit. Uh, let us know what you think about that, because we really do value your opinion and we'd be curious to hear, um, how many of you guys would be interested in something like that. As a big fan of the show How It's Made, I'm all for it. Yeah, you you also like How It's Made? There, Joe, do you like How It's Mad? Do you really? I see? I figured you, like, I figured you were gonna give me crap for that. No, no, no, no no, what I like? Here's the thing, man, here's the thing. I can't stand to watch it that like, I don't like it's hard for me to just watch something that's like purely entertainment, like Family Guy is like not something I'm interested in. It has to have some sort of like even if it's drunk history. I watched drunk History all the time because I'm like, Okay, well it's funny, but I'm also like kind of learning some ship. You know. I'm really surprised. I was expecting to get some some flak for that, because it's like, at some point robot Chicken loses its appeal and I just want to like sit with a bourbon and listen to the common narrative about how space heaters are made after a long day. It's like it's like a sedative, but in a very good way, you know how. Well, yeah, man, I'm I'm gonna keep that in my back pocket next time. I'm having trouble falling to sleep and I haven't watched it in a little bit. But anyway, Uh, listeners, please let us know how you feel about that maker segment and let our audio engineer Phil know why you think I was the dominator in this week's fish News. Fish News that escalated quickly, real quick before we jump in, you know, by listening to request. We spent a lot of time on prostitutes on ice last week, which was fun and formative at all. But um, some big things also happened in Florida right recently that we've we've yet to touch on, and we just want to do that briefly here and you'll understand why. Um. Not long ago I reported on what was a big win for Captains for Clean Water. I say was, and that's going to be important. Um. Back in November, the Army Corps of Engineers finally revised its plan for how Lake Okeechobi's water will get managed. As a reminder, um, Laco used to let water naturally filter south to the Everglades, and that water has now been diverted east and west, and that's now killing the Everglades, it's starving them. At the time, Captains for Clean Water said, you know, hey, look the war is not over. But this new plan is a great first step for the future the Everglades, as the new plan made a lot more sense than m the previous water management plans. So just a few short months ago, this this felt like a step in the right direction. Yeah. So uh, Now, the folks that benefit like the most from water diversions are the folks in the sugar industry, and in in Florida, that's known as big sugar. Right, Um, these are incredibly influential people in Florida and now they're trying to fast track bill s B two five zero eight. And in simple terms, this bill is tied to budget procedure and therefore is not intended to undergo like substantial policy change. Uh. There would only be one chance for public comment, and if it passes, Florida could be left with outdated, like nineteen forties approach to managing their waterways. It would also mean three million in Everglades restoration money held hostage by the bills passing. So no good. Yeah, it's it's a bad deal and it kind of came up out of nowhere. So what we're encouraging you guys to do to actually head over to the Meat Eatter dot com and read the detailed story about this by our colleague Maggie Hudlow. She was actually in Tallahassee on the ground for the rally held by a ton of captains to protest. Yeah, yeah, she was down there doing her thing. And even if you don't read the story, or if even if you don't ever plan to fish in Florida, at minimum, take one minute to go to Captain's for Clean water dot org and sign their petition. It takes seconds. Uh, you don't get out on any email lists, they promise, and I know for a fact you won't. Just doing that can really make a difference. Yeah, And while we're on this, like conservation be a little bit here um listeners, Joe and I have been talking and we came up with a little idea that we I guess we'd also like your input on UM. We only have so much time with you guys each week, and because of that, we're only hitting one news story of piece, and we like to have a little bit of fun here on Ben. We don't want it to be all like doom and gloom. We wanted to be entertaining, but you know, we strive to kind of make a combination here meet in the middle ground where we're giving you some entertainment, but we're also giving you some like important information, and sometimes that means that we're not able to hit every conservation story out there. So we're going to try something at the top of news starting next week called Conservation Minutes. Yeah, because we think we think it's important that you guys know what's going on. Even if we're not detailing every one of those stories. So this is gonna be just a very quick hit on what's going on in the fish conservation realm, and of course we'll keep working. The biggest stories are the ones we think are our most important or interesting to all right into the regular news coverage. But we're pumped to try that. I think that'll be good. I think more informed. I think it's gonna be good. And you know, we have so many like talented colleagues over here at Meat Eater that cover this stuff in ways that we might not have time to in this like podcast format, so you know, we'll we'll also be kind of directing you to a bunch of that stuff. And man, I I think it's gonna it's gonna be good. And I think for the people who are really interested in that kind of thing, like I am and like you are, Joe, it's going to be kind of a valuable, like you know, kind of what do they call it, like an aggregation of important conservation news. Yeah, it basically just lets us, you know, keep you keep you up on the important stuff when like something so good like prostitutes on ice comes along and we just can't leave that alone anyway. So that's we did a joint report on prostitutes on ice last week, which means getting back to normal. Here, it's your lead this week. What do you got? Okay, Joe? So I'm gonna start with the question, man, what is the weirdest thing that you've ever caught? A foul ball hit by Mooki Wilson bullshit. Yeah, I'm not kidding when I was a little kid. Oh oh, I get it. You're not You're catch got you? Okay, I'm messing with you. I don't know, dude. I have caught so many weird things that like, I don't even know. There's not one that springs to mind, is like damn right right now, we've all gone a barracuda in Jersey once. That's pretty weird. A little tiny barracuda in Jersey about that. So we've all gone out, we've all caught a non target species, like you know, you're going for catfish or whatever and you hit a I don't know, a barracuda in New Jersey because those are definitely fresh and saltwater speak. But have you ever have you ever caught the wrong class of animal? Wrong class of animal, like the wrong phylum in the in the in the Latin, I don't well caught something that was an animal but not a fish. I've hooked a million birds like throwing lures, a striper blitz and like gulls, you know, every once in a while. See, man, you don't gotta be about windmills. He don't gotta be worried about windmills killing birds. It's just Joe Surmelie. Uh So. So the story comes from NBC ten in Boston. Angler Keith, I think it's pronounced plassan, which is uh it might be anyway. Keith Keith was an ice fisherman from Massachusetts. Uh And he knew he had something big on his tip up, but I don't think he expected that something to be thirty pounds and furry. You see, Keith caught himself. There's a joke. There's a joke there. And what he just said, I'll tell you what. I was ice fish with my dog and he was running into into like this group. Next was he ran into all their tip ups and they almost caught something a thirty pounds in furry in the in the way of Boone the yellow lab. Uh So, he caught himself an otter um. There's a video I saw young Lady did this. I had a feeling you were going to. Yeah. So there's a video of the incident itself, as well as an interview with NBC ten that Keith decided to take in his car for some reason. It's like hilarious. There are tubs of gear and shipped behind him. So, I mean, I think I would you for the news and you're sitting in your truck. It's weird. I loved it, man, I think I'd like this dude. Anyhow, the interview in the footage they used are like pretty vanilla, you know, very NBC ten. But I found the dude's Instagram and holy sh it, is his video way more. I'll send it to It's Keith's custom would flags do make some like pretty cool wood flags? And the very first thing on that Instagram page is the uh is the video? So to get into that video, first off, the dude is swearing like a sale and that's not only relatable, but it also makes way more sense why NBC ten used approximately six seconds of this minute long video because I'm pretty sure I'm pretty sure those were the only six seconds where there wasn't a swear share between the two anglers in it. Now, that's part one that I really like about this video. My next favorite part of the video is what Keith's buddy tries to do, which, um, I mean it looks like he tries to gill lift the otter in the same way you might try to gill lift a pike. Uh, there are ce I didn't see any of this because I've only seen the NBC ten. It was very tame. It's so funny. Um. The first problem is that an otter does not have gills, making it hard to gil lift. The second problem is what otters do have, and that is insanely sharp teeth. If you want to see what a piste off outer can do, go ahead and google otter attack and Hotter? Will you up very well? They want to kill him all over in Britain. Yeah, right right, that's what we call a call back in the industry, fellas. Um. Very wisely, Keith dissuades his companion from trying to handle the otter any further. Now, you hear Keith say that they're going to cut the line, But then he changed his heart and things that he might be able to get the hook out as it's already in the corner of like the otter's mouth, like it's just barely in there. It's not like this otter like swallow. No, that's another thing that makes a story like palpable. If you had had like a writhing otter in there, that would not have been great Anyhow. This otter is, I got to mention, the otter is adorable and honestly like remarkably calm during the whole ordeal. It just kind of like comes up like if you ever see like the National Geographic where they like videotape like seals coming through like the ice holes in the Antarctic. It's just like it's just like kind of coming up and like taking some breaths, and it doesn't seem overly angry. Um, It not thrashing, it's not biting at everything. And dare I say it's snoot looks very popable. Oh man, do you participate in Snooter Saturday with your dog on Instagram? No? But I boomed that dog Snoot all the time. Dude, I can't disagree with this because I gotta tell you, like you can't help but feel a little bad for it, right, because like it's struggling down there, and then when they finally do get it through the hole, and like his little nose just comes up and he's just like, yeah, I felt I felt bad for the otter. I felt bad for him because he wasn't he was kind of cute anyway. In the interview on NBC ten, Keith mentions that he was sure he had a state record on the line, and although it may not have been the walley or muskie or whatever else he was hoping for, I'd say you can confidently claim the Massachusetts otter catch and release record through the ice. I think this was a cool story. And what I appreciate is I know that feeling of having something on the line and you're like I have no idea what I have on here, dude, but like whatever this is, like this is some crazy ship right now, and like you're just going through your head of like fifty muskie or thirty pound wall like crazy. I don't think I would have like thought, I would have been like god, damn, I would have been pissed. It would have been pissed that it wasn't a fish. And then I did feel bad for the little guy a little. Yeah, I mean the otter is adorable, but you know what I actually my question was how often does stuff like this happen? And as it turns out, Joe, it kind of happens like a lot. He is, by no leans. Yeah, he's by no means like the first person to catch an otter through the ice. If you if you just google otter through the ice and you click the little video thing, a bunch of ship comes up. I'm same with muskrats, beavers not so much. But you know, it's interesting the mamalion by catch that uh seems mostly through the ice. Because this happened more. I would bet it happens more ice fishing than open water. You've never heard of it open world. Well, Joe are very own Brody Henderson. I showed him this video and he told me about a tangle he got in with a an otter while he was streamer fishing one time. Yep. So I mean, did it actually go for the streamer? Because because I know people that have snagged beavers um. In fact, I know somebody had happened to at night while mouse fishing, but it didn't eat the fly. Yeah, no, I I didn't ask him too much about I mean, like you know. We we we're very hard at work in the mediator office and sometimes it doesn't allow for extended conversation. I'll ask him about it, um, but no, My my impression was that the otter went for the streamer man. I mean, that's what they do, that's how they feed. I can see it. I've never I've never had that happen. I've never, at least I've never seen anything in person, though I do know of a confirmed account from a buddy of mine that hooked a freaking seal in the mouth trolling a rubber show for stripers. Now, they're extremely smart, like kind of like dolphins. You don't ever hear anybody hooking a dolphin that like, like a dolphin never eats your lore. They eat and you know, yeah, because they know it's fake. And I always thought, you know, seals were pretty smart too, and not that one. But they were literally trolling back Bay along these sod banks and I remember seeing the video of it, the reels just dumping and they're like, oh my god, this is an eighty pound striper or something. It's a light rod. It's just dumping, and then like a mile back up with it with with his a storm had right in the corner of his mouth. That's that's the only time I've no God, no, they just ended up cutting a lot like you weren't reeling that in that there was no way you were working it to the boat, and as if you chased it, it would just swim a million miles an hour the other direction, like there was no catching up. So uh yeah, no, please enter your password. You have one unheard message. Oh hey man, thanks for us the audio for like a sixth time in a row. Now, um, like I said, if this happens to gonna find a new host. Totally unprofessional. End of message, Delete press seven, save deleted. All right, so we'll go from let's go from cute little otters to stone called death. About that, because, as Sergeant Barnes once famously said, everybody gotta die sometime, right, And if you're a fisherman, why not give back to the fishes when you kick the bucket by having yourself memorialized in an artificial reef ball. It creates habitats for the things you spent your entire life ripping from the sea and dropping in hot conola oil. It only seems I needed to point out that you just missed a way up sleeping with the fishes. Pun but go ahead, Yeah, you're right. Yeah, shame one, shame on me. Anyway. Reef ball memorials. This is not new, okay. Florida Bay's company, Eternal Reefs, has been providing this service since the late nineteen eighties. Uh. And they take the cremated remains of folks, they mixed them with concrete, cast them into a reef ball and then drop that to the bottom. Let you get the story, what is it? Because that's way more palatable than being turned into chumh. Yes, we're gonna get to that though, because I kind of suggest that later and you'll understand why. According to the story I'm pulling from, and this is in the Guardian, there are more than three thousand of these memorial reef balls in twenty five offshore sites ranging from Texas to New Jersey. Friends and family are then provided with the GPS coordinates of their loved ones reef ball. So if the dead coral wasn't enough for you, you can also be dead. So well, hey man, but these are you're jumping the gun because these promote coral growth, right, So anyway, I get the impression that this service based on your reaction because you've never heard of it was kind of low key, right. I I had heard about it many years ago. In fact, I remember reporting about it almost twenty years ago at Saltwater Sportsman. But since then, a couple of things have changed, right, people in general, the next generation, maybe your generation, has gotten a lot more eco friendly, and eco friendly alternatives to traditional burial have gotten more and more trendy. Then you add in the pandemic, which I guess made people think the entire population of Earth was doomed, and reef ball memorials have surged. In fact, Eternal Reefs says uh the number of annual requests for information tripled during the pandemic. Right, so Eternal Reef also has competition. Now there are other companies doing the same thing. Matter of fact, according to the story, and operation recently started doing this in the U k Um. And it's not a simple startup because you need a lot of government permits and permission to just go start dumping things offshore. Right. You can't just run out there in your in your boys boat. Um. But the guys who run the operation over there say they are bombarded by calls from folks looking to replicate the model. These are people, Yeah, they want to get in on the incorporating dead people into reef balls action. Personally, I've always thought this was kind of cool, right, and and as a man that has fished a lot of artificial reefs, I'm very much for them. And they certainly do work. Like you mentioned, Carl, it's not just habitat. They give corals and things places to cling to um and so there's no denying that they create habitat and it's a way to promote life after you're gone. And here's a quote from the piece. You're providing structure for fish to swim through and a place for plants to grow, said seventy seven year old Janet Hawk of Indianapolis. My first impression was that they were really ugly. Then I thought, oh, it would be so nice to be down there with little orange fish darting through the holes in my ball. No reaction to you, I'm going to take the joke there on. Sometimes there's just no sport in it. Man. That was it was a useless quote that I threw in there just for that, and you just huffed at me anyway. But you know, it's even more trendy than eco friendly alternatives to shift these days, super hardcore eco people cutting down trendy eco friendly alternatives and telling you why they're not actually that good for the I love this game. Okay, so uh. In the story, according to Rosie Inman Cook, manager of the Natural Death Center charity, cremation is a disaster because she says, it releases of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere with each body. Furthermore, the concrete manufacturing industry is responsible for eight percent of global CEO two emissions. Okay, let me let me tell you back to your chum, right, yeah, well, let me tell you like the problem with her logic. You know, it creates a lot more carbon dioxide people who are still alive. You're right, So what's the alternative? Then you run up the chum. I wasn't thinking that, but I mean, if you think about it, what's what's more eco friendly? Is an old school burial at sea? Right? Like if you if you that also promotes and sustains life, does it not? If you just weighed somebody down with sand in like a biode garritable bag, the crabs would thrive and so on and so forth. Um, anyway, I I still think it's a neat idea despite the CEO two emissions, though, I gotta tell you I was thinking about this right. If I did it, I wouldn't want my reef ball dropped on a reef I'd asked to be dropped in like a really popular lake cove in the middle of the night, so it would just like snag the ship out of lures and stuff. So like every time your boys are there, they'd be like, God, damn it, Smelli just got another asshole, or or like put it. Put it somewhere really inconvenient, like where voters had to market to know to avoid me. But then sit, I can watch boats that weren't aware of me lose props and ship. So like I'm creating habitat and laughter in death. Heyden, can we sign you up for a reef ball? I'll make sure it gets wherever he wanted to go? Yeah, I mean, um, gosh, do I have a lot of man, I have so many thoughts about this. Man, I have so many thoughts giself. You know, I'll tell you a funny thing that I was thinking off air once we once we stop this recording. Uh, They're welcome listeners. You know what that is? Also like like do you know what like the red tape around this is like primarily is it just like creating structure. Does it have anything to do with like the disposal of a body? No, no, no, no, no, no, there's none, there's none of that there. There really is no red tape, right. One thing I did not address though. People are curious about a cost, so like a funeral these days, you're looking at spending like ten grand on a funeral, So you're looking at I think three to six thousand to have yourself turned into a reef ball. But there's there's no red tape. I mean they do this alongside of organizations that build artificial reefs. So my impression is that if you have one of these organizations that has spent all the time and money cleaning you know, twenty uh decommissioned subway cars, well it's like if they're heading out and it and it lines out, like they'll hang onto your reef ball in Florida and make sure it gets to those people so that you end up on the reef in your state or like where you want to be. There's no red tape. People complaining yet, like this is a dumb idea because of Ceo too. You two can ride the subway for all of eternity. Um, right, the you know what I want? I want when I die. I would like to, uh what the ship is that that stuff that they put Han Solo in in Star Wars. I don't know, real quick, Phil, Phil, We're gonna kick it to Phil, Phil, Please let us know what the stuff was that they put Han Solo in. Um, if you feel like it. I would also love to know if you were a reef ball, where should we drop you. Uh, well, hold on a second, no no, no, no no, no, no no, I'm not gonna let you transition there because I need to tell you my end game here. My end game is I want to be preserved in that stuff, and then I want to find like the most annoying tourist snorkeling destination possible, and then I want them to preserve my body in that take me out there and kind of like just tuck me into the reef so I can scare the ship out of tourist snorkelers as they're trying to enjoy their holiday, preferably where a bunch of little kids dive with their parents. That's good, but I hate to break it to you. It's not that original. They are underwater statues and things doing. Isn't there some lake in Wisconsin where there's like a Jason vorhees at you on the bottom where it I'm pretty sure I've seen that. Unless it was a hoax, you're gonna have to come up with something else. Man, Well, anyhow, make cast out of mushrooms and something so you completely degrade and then people can, like, you know, pick the bulllettes where you died. Yeah, I want to just be buried hole just in case there's like some weird caveat when I get to heaven. Anyway, why don't we kick it over to Phil Man. Yeah, we're gonna kick it over and Phil now already tried to kick it over to Phil. Uh Phil star wars reef balls. Um. Let us know who won this week, would you? And when we've done hearing with Phil, we've got a little sage lely wisdom from the sultry lips of our bud river Horse. And instead of talking about flies that won't work, this was about one that probably worked a little too well. Joe, Sir Mellie, you are the little orange fish swimming through the holes in my ball. This week, you're the winner. I think these reef balls are a rat idea. I wanted to laugh at them at first, but then I thought that I'm going to be that weird Disney adult that gets his grandchildren apprehended by Disney security after they scatter my ashes into the waters of Pirates of the Caribbean. Hey, now, this is River Horse coming to you from the Deep South with some sagely wisdom. Today's story is about a big old mouse fly, but it's also about being a lifelong learner, chasing your passions and not being afraid to have some good old fashioned fun. Today's story is called here Kitty Cat. There's fifty ft of seven eggs leading from the red leather couch into the bedroom, and all hell is about to break loose. She's in there, throwing on a sundress and some boots for the day, as angelic and stunningly beautiful and momentarily innocent as ever. I've been testing endless variants of big gass mouse flies from lakes to rivers all over Texas for most of the summer. Even the supper table is covered with him. A rodent hat gone wild. I've got one of them tucked just under the dresser by her toes, ready for prime time. Once I gently start stripping the tippet, it's all about presentation. I pause for a few seconds and then get the mouse guet rolling along under her feet molasses slow and tantalizingly sweet. God damn it. Ribber horse comes the howl from the flank of the house. She storms into the front mouse number thirty eight, being strangled in her hand, flings open the bungalow door and lets it fly onto the lawn. Doesn't make it far getting stuck in the cactus other than me being in the doghouse until I make it up to her with white wine and steaks on the girl. There's no damage done since you have to clip the hook for these sort of fun tests. Life only makes sense to me when I chase all of the random and errant curiosities that have about the world, exploring and delving in and trying to seek the highest quality of whatever it is I'm into at the moment. The quintessential honey dripper toe curler mouse fly is my current self assignment. Even I sometimes wonder what gives fishing a mouse with sack and grace. Ain't rocket science. There are only a few things you have to do, including fire a cast with a double hull that takes no prisoners. About the only time I give a look seat of my back cast is when I'm mousing it up. And yes, I get an odd pleasure from seeing the fly cruising past ten feet off the water, those precious tiny ears pinned back hard, that tale, erect and proud, acting as a fuselage stable, Sir, Always land the mouse fly on something dirt, banks, tree limbs, lily pads, docks, floating logs, and sandbars. Strip them slower than slow, for you have nothing but time. Maybe begin with a few trembling whisker twitches, then a strange refried bean aftermath wobble mm hm, the old backfire too, and then make it happen with a big old disco inferno. Get that mouse on back to you, and don't forget to hang on tight for the wild eat. With time and continued derelict waterborne mouse misadventures, the experiments are finally whittled down to a last pair of mice types. After all these months in cast, two backyard brawlers have delivered the goods and done the most extensive damage to lone starfish. There is the mesmerizing wooly deer hair version, the size of a free range chicken, aptly monikered buck fever, and the massive pauper too odd hook called here Kitty, and he decide which one of these rodents wants the victory lap. For a long while, I'm uncertain until I get a wedding invitation in the mail for my buddy. One of my friends, you see, is an absolute A one certified dinghis He's the kind of guy that thinks he's sexier than sexy, but he's a good friend and we just deal with him. It seems like he's getting married. What a perfect place to bring the mouse flies and see what happens. I'm a very spiritual soul, and Mother Earth and Great Spirit are always in my life. But one of my favorite churches will always be the Water for Church. Today. I arrive at the wedding way early so I can set up the mice on long leaders and unleash it once the ceremony begins. They will even be video cameras rolland to record the whole event for mouse and wedding posterity. On my wedding invitation. I even take a sharpie marker and add river Horse plus two guests, Buck Fever and here Kitty, dearly beloved, and all lovers of wedded bliss and mouse flies, we are gathered here today to absolutely freak the heck out of the first twenty rows of people. And as the musician Prince once said, let's go crazy. Do you, buck Fever and here Kitty promised to unleash your steadfast love to all large mouth bass and full moon brown trout for eternity. With everyone finally at the altar and the wedding ceremony going full bloom, I know it's time I start stripping the mouse flies right to the feet of the bride and groom. It's on and that's our sagely wisdom for today. My friend is still at dinghis but he's found the love of his life and maybe he'll forgive me someday. As for me, fishing mouse flies always rules. I found the best one here, Kitty. Let's always remember that in life. Don't take it all too seriously. Laughter is the sweetest medicine, my brothers and sisters, and there isn't much sweeter than a ten pound bass eating a mouse River horse Man. Haven't heard from him in a while. Kind of missed that, dude. This one hit home for me for two reasons. One because I love mousing for trout, that's an obvious one, but also because I actually tried to do something similar once but was halted for fear of hr disciplinarian. And and this was way back when the live target Field Mouse first came out. Hollow body Lord. Yeah, it's a hollow it's like a hollow body frog, but it's a mouse um and man like it's it is incredibly realistic. At the time, it was like mind blowing how much this thing looked like a little mouse, just like sitting there poised um. At the time, I was still working in New York City in the in the UH for Field and Stream when they still had their offices there, and I wanted to put it in the break room and set up a hit on camera and just let it roll for social media. But my boss was like, that is funny as shit, but hell no, absolutely not, because like you know, like old margin accounting would walk in and have a heart attack or somethin And there was also the whole like filming people unaware. Yeah, well, I'll tell me you're not really supposed to do that. I'll tell you what, there's no one in the office listen to the Bent podcast anyhow, I'm gonna do that and you can vicariously through. Did you ever tell you about my mouse pattern? No, yep, it was. It was pretty good. It was a it was a let me think about this. You tied it on a streamer hook, right, and the tail you use one of those squirmy wormy like in pink, and then you would also tie those in for the feet. So the first thing you do is you'd wrap the hook down and thread tie in the tail, and then you tie into each individual feet by just making like an inch long section, crossing it across the hook shank in two spots, and then you'd have like you know, like the foot and the tail out. Then you'd take a zonker strip and you'd wrap it all the way around right um. And then what you would do is you would take a little beasts of foam like what you use for like a chubby or whatever, and you make your ears with it. And then you would take a bass or like a like a sunny um foam like you know, like one of those popper bodies. Yeah, yeah, actually you would. You would put that on first. Sorry, you put that on first, like you were doing it as a bead head, but you put it in reverse, so it was like a cone pointing towards the eye of the hook. It's a sneaky beat style head slider head. And what was cool about that pattern is like the because it was squirmy wearing material, the tail and the feet would be like have like a ton of action in them. And because you didn't have any foam towards the back, it would kind of sit lower in the water towards the back end, so it would look like how a mouse swims. And then those foam ears you could use that is kind of like a little poper. It would displace a bunch of water um, you know. So so to bring this full circle Man to tie a couple of those and mousing is something that I absolutely want to do, hopefully when I come visit this summer. I do have a pretty good idea of where I might pitch some ice around here, but you'll have to share some spots when I come back east Man, which leads perfectly into this week's installment of the bent helpline, where we'll discuss when it is and it's not okay to share fishing in funk? What are you laughing at, Marktini? You're not an idiot, You're not a gamblooning. How more, you're a fisherman. What's your emerging tee? So here's one via the instagrams from at Blue Water Johnny. Okay, uh, this is this is this is gonna be an interesting one. I'm very curious to hear your take on this. So so here's what he writes. He says, so, what do you do when you get called into an insane bite by some guys, you know, something that's on the dead down low and lasts for weeks. But you get told by the guys let's call them crew A, that you can't tell anyone. You go and smash them on their advice. Then your boys ask, hey, man, what yep to catching Annie? You kind of have to lie to your bros or burn crew a. What would Bent do? This is a dilemma of biblical proportions sort of maybe yeah, kind of? Well, I honestly, man, I think it's like pretty cut and dry, dude. It's like, if you're gonna go hit that bite. Man Um, you pretty much just have to like not tell folks where you were. You can tell them like maybe if it's a for instance, if somebody was like, hey, man Um, I saw you like banging them on cough and flies the other day. Uh where you know what's up with that? You can we go do that? I would be like, uh, man, I I can't really take you to like where I was because like that's like something my buddies showed me, and you know, they told me to kind of keep it on the hush hush, but I will tell you that, like it's kind of going off on like the West Branch of the Delaware, And I also listeners for all these examples, I always use the West Branch of the Delaware because like yeah, yeah, yeah, like you know, it's a large trout from New York Pennsylvania probably there, you know what I mean in the summertime, millions of bugs coming off. Yeah. I mean. So this is a tougher one for me because, as I've joked before, like I barely have one solid set of fishing friends, let alone too that might conflict you know what I'm saying, Like where one would be worried about the other one was doing. Um, but I will say I am. I'm extremely loyal with that kind of thing. If you if you show me something, uh great example, I got let in this summer to Sheep's Head in New Jersey. That's a thing. It's like getting more and more popular. But the guys who were good at it, they don't talk about it. And I knew one guy and I pestered him until finally he was like yes, And I realized that he was going to give me like three years worth of of hard work and knowledge in one shot. Hang on, shut that dog up. My wife's yelling at me because she's on a meeting too. Anyway, Anyway, what were we saying something about fishing, fishing, Yeah, yeah, okay. So so I realized that, like, this dude is about to show me in a few short hours what took him years and seasons to dial in in one shot. And we had a great day and we took very strategic photos downward into the boat. So you saw nothing. And I've been asked a million times under no circumstances of my giving that up, like I will not do that. So you know, I I I'm very respectful of that, but to your point you sort of hinted at it. Um, you can't be just like a total jerk about it. But if you're if you're doing this in one specific area, I might say the river or be like, hey it's on man, get out there and explore, like the whole river is on fire right now, dude, just get out there and and check it out. The other thing that you could do is just be like straight up honest with your with your secondary buddies i e. Not Group A. You just go, yeah, man, I mean we had a really good day and like, dude, it is on fire like in A. But you know you can give them like a general area again, but you can't. But just be honest, Just be like, but the person who took me really asked me not to tell anybody, so like, I just can't. I'm really sorry, and they're gonna give you like the sheepish look like a bit. Come on, bro, you just stick to it, man, Just be like no really, because then you know, even worst case scenario, your buddies and Group B will have enough trust in you to take you to their spots because if there's one thing they know about, you know, it's not where you call it that giant brown trout. But it said if you get a good spot, you keep it on the download exactly. And that is that is worth so much in fishing because another question he could have asked, which might have even been a better question, is what do you do when you take a buddy to a spot and say, don't tell anybody, and then show up in that spot and he is there with someone else that you don't know? What do you do? Then? I am lucky and that I have never you believe, I have never had that happen to me. Though I have had people call me up and be like, hey, can I go to this spot with so and so? And sometimes I'm like I'd prefer you didn't, and sometimes depending on the spot, I'm like, yeah, go ahead. But they had the courtesy to reach out and be like that spot you showed me, I would like to take my friend, Brian. Is that okay? Hey? I will say this though, uh strong chance if y'all send some comments about what you would do to that friend if if you showed up and he was in a spot you said not to be at with somebody else. I just want to know, like, what your reaction would be, would there be whips, chains, just fists, just words? What would you do? Um? Let us know and keep those questions coming to Bent at the Meat Eater dot com. Maybe we'll answer them right here on the ben helpline. So that's it for this week. If you were about to unleash that streamer you thought was original to the masses, sorry if we squashed your hopes and dreams, but I would like to say thanks again to Brian Schmidt for joining us. Also, I'll reiterate that if you prefer to deliver your rodents on a swim bait rod instead of a fly rod, look him up. He makes badass giant rats in umbrella rig of rats. Also look us up. Keep sending those sale bin items, bar nominations, questions, and awkward photos to Bent at the Meat Eater dot com and keep using those degenerate Angler and Bent podcast hashtag so we can see what you got going on. Yes, please do. And finally, keep in mind that ranting about spot burns just raises your blood pressure and that's not good. Just choose the healthier option, take out a bankload, and just buy the entire river so we don't have to listen to you anymore. Take your own advice joke